Steve Blum's Blog
The complete draft has been published, and can be downloaded here:
In the Matter of Restoring Internet Freedom, Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order
It runs 210 pages. I’ll have a summary post up later this morning. Happy Thanksgiving.
Update: The complete draft has been published:
In the Matter of Restoring Internet Freedom, Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order
It runs 210 pages. I’ll have a summary post up later this morning. Happy Thanksgiving.
The full text of Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai’s draft order declaring that broadband is no longer a common carrier service or subject to network neutrality rules is supposed to be released today. We’ll have three weeks to read, debate, praise, protest and, ultimately, swallow it, since there’s little chance it’ll be changed or delayed significantly.… More
Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai dropped the draft of his common carrier decision on fellow commissioners this morning, and plans to make it public tomorrow. Media reports say that it’ll be a complete repeal of the FCC’s 2015 decision to classify broadband as a common carrier service and impose net neutrality rules on Internet service providers. Instead, according to a press release, Pai said “the FCC would simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices”.… More
It’s been a bad year for the traditional television subscription business. An analysis by Daniel Frankel in Fierce Cable shows that it’s not quite as awful as stock analysts expected, but it’s close and awful enough…
… MoreAs earnings season has approached in each quarter of 2017, analysts have predicted the watershed moment where linear pay TV losses surpass 1 million customers.
The market came close in the always-volatile second quarter, losing 976,000 subscribers…
The top 10 publicly traded operators, which account for about 95% of the market, reported losses of around 398,000 video customers in the third quarter.
Stomp on cities. Boiled down, that’s the conclusion of a group advising the Federal Communications Commission on what states ought to be doing to promote broadband deployment. The FCC formed the Broadband Development Advisory Committee earlier this year, which is top heavy with lobbyists and others from big and mid-sized telecoms companies, very weak on local or state government representation and devoid of any municipal broadband experience. The committee spun off five working groups, including one tasked with writing model laws for states to adopt or, potentially, for the FCC to impose through its assumed preemption powers.… More
As the Federal Communications Commission wrapped up its November weed whacking on Thursday, attention turned to the expected release of a draft decision that will overturn the Obama-era decision that classified broadband as a common carrier service. According to a Reuters story, it’s coming soon…
… MoreThe head of the Federal Communications Commission is set to unveil plans next week for a final vote to reverse a landmark 2015 net neutrality order barring the blocking or slowing of web content, two people briefed on the plans said.
Bringing ubiquitous high speed broadband to the Monterey Bay region requires goals set and pursued at the grass roots level, but benchmarked against a regional plan and standards. That was the top line consensus from a roundtable brainstorming session at the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership’s third annual State of the Region conference, held last week in Monterey.
The region takes in San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. It quickly became apparent that one size would never fit all in an area that bundles high tech Santa Cruz and uber-rich Pebble Beach with Salinas Valley farming towns, the Paicines cattle country and the isolated peaks of the Santa Lucia and Gabilan mountains.… More
Yesterday, California’s broadband infrastructure subsidy fund began its transition from a bottom-up program focused on independent, locally developed projects, to a top down one that’s gamed for the benefit of incumbents. The first post-assembly bill 1665 rules for the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) were put on the table by the California Public Utilities Commission.
The draft lays out the process for facilities-based incumbents – broadband service providers that own and operate their own equipment, wired or wireless – to exercise their right of first refusal for unserved areas.… More
There was a mix of good and awful policy on the table last Thursday as the Federal Communication Commission’s broadband deployment advisory committee (BDAC) heard from its five working groups. The BDAC was created by Ajit Pai shortly after he got the nod to be Donald Trump’s FCC chairman. Its job is to offer advice on how to speed up broadband deployment by breaking down legal, regulatory and bureaucratic barriers. Although there are nuggets of sound policy to be found, what it came up with mostly reads like wish lists written by telecoms lobbyists.… More
In an apparent attempt to dial down the heat on regulatory review of its dark fiber leasing deal with Verizon, Southern California Edison wants to remove any reference to electronics from the paperwork it filed with the California Public Utilities Commission.
SCE has been in the dark fiber business for a couple of decades, and is certified by the CPUC as a competitive telephone company – it holds a certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN) that allows it to lease dark fiber and sell other telecommunications services, including lit data transport, on its 5,000 mile fiber network.… More